Footage from an Oct. 8, 2025 Association of American Medical Colleges town hall shows President David Skorton and other leaders saying the group will keep supporting court challenges to state laws and federal executive actions that limit gender-affirming care for minors. Critics, including the group Do No Harm, call the stance political.
On Oct. 8, 2025, during a virtual town hall, Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) President David Skorton said he was “very concerned” about federal and state crackdowns on transgender-related medical care and called the issue a “high priority” for the organization, according to footage obtained by Do No Harm and published by the Daily Wire. “We have a lot of work to do in this area, and it’s definitely, definitely a high priority for us,” Skorton said. (dailywire.com)
Answering the same question, AAMC Chief Legal Officer Frank Trinity said the association has, since 2022, joined a coalition of more than 20 national medical groups filing amicus briefs that support legal challenges to restrictions on gender-affirming care for minors. He described the U.S. Supreme Court’s June 18, 2025 ruling in United States v. Skrmetti—upholding Tennessee’s law restricting certain treatments for transgender minors—as a “setback,” but noted ongoing litigation, including challenges to a Trump administration executive order aimed at cutting federal support for such care. (dailywire.com)
Court records and advocacy statements confirm that the Supreme Court upheld Tennessee’s law in United States v. Skrmetti and later directed lower courts to revisit related cases in light of that decision. (supreme.justia.com)
Trinity also referenced AAMC-backed briefs targeting federal actions. AAMC notices show the group joined appellate amicus briefs in September and October 2025 urging the Ninth and Fourth Circuits to keep injunctions in place against Executive Order 14187, which directs agencies to end federal support for gender-affirming care for people under 19. Earlier in 2025, AAMC joined briefs in district courts challenging the order, and has supported challenges to state laws in Ohio, Montana, Arkansas and elsewhere. (aamc.org)
The AAMC’s summaries of these briefs state that major medical organizations consider evidence-based gender-affirming care for appropriately evaluated adolescents to be effective and aligned with established guidelines, and they urge courts to allow such care to continue while cases proceed. Federal courts have issued preliminary injunctions blocking enforcement of portions of the 2025 executive order while litigation continues. (aamc.org)
Malika Fair, the AAMC’s chief community, opportunity, and engagement officer, said the organization is focused on “supporting the entire patient population … which is under attack,” with Skorton adding that medical professionals face similar pressures, the video shows. Fair’s role and title are listed on the AAMC leadership page. (dailywire.com)
Beyond the litigation, AAMC leaders discussed diversity efforts. Skorton reiterated his view that a diverse medical workforce improves problem-solving and said the organization would continue such work “with all deference to the law.” The Daily Wire reported that Skorton told members on Oct. 3, 2025 that an AAMC affinity group had been rebranded from “Diversity and Inclusion” to the “Group on Collaboration, Engagement, and Community”; AAMC pages reference the GCEC. (dailywire.com)
The AAMC administers the Medical College Admission Test (MCAT) and co-sponsors the Liaison Committee on Medical Education (LCME), which accredits U.S. MD-granting programs. The association says its members include all 162 U.S. medical schools accredited by the LCME, 14 Canadian medical schools, nearly 500 academic health systems and teaching hospitals, and more than 70 academic societies. (AAMC itself does not accredit medical schools.) (students-residents.aamc.org)
Do No Harm chairman Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, whose group obtained the footage, criticized the AAMC as a “political activist organization” disconnected from “biological reality and evidence-based practices.” He was also skeptical of the DEI rebrand, according to the Daily Wire. (dailywire.com)
In a related debate over the evidence base, Dr. Charles Lockwood of the University of South Florida’s Morsani College of Medicine recently published a viewpoint in The American Journal of Medicine on politics and medical practice; in comments to the Daily Wire, he argued there is “no evidence of benefit” for gender-affirming care in reducing suicide or improving mental health and urged a return to evidence-based medicine. His quoted claims were made to the Daily Wire; the journal article itself was not reviewed here. (dailywire.com)
